Question 1190071
p = the number of cars.
each car contains 4 members except the last car which contains 1.
the number of people in the cars is 4 * (p - 1) + 1.
the equation for the number of cars required to carry 17 team members is 17 = 4 * (p - 1) + 1.
subtract 1 from both sides of this equation to get 16 = 4 * (p - 1).
divide both sides of this equation by 4 to get 4 = p - 1
add 1 to both sides of this equation to get 5 = p.
the number of cars is 5.
17 = 4 * (p - 1) + 1 becomes 17 = 4 * (5 - 1) + 1 which becomes 17 = 4 * 4 + 1 which becomes 17 = 16 + 1 which becomes 17 = 17.
this confirms p = 5 as the number of cars is good.
the number of cars that were full is 5 - 1 = 4.
1 of the cars only carried one team member, so the total number of cars required was 5.